Thursday, April 20, 2017

Review: 'Psychedelia: 101 Iconic Underground Rock Albums 1966-1970'

LSD has a tendency to confuse the senses, so it’s no
coincidence that pop’s most acid-soaked years birthed its most visual music. The
late sixties’ psychedelic discs often came housed in fluorescent, marvelously
garish sleeves, but nothing more than the sounds in the grooves was necessary
to paint multicolor images in listener’s minds. Sgt. Pepper’s, The Piper at
the Gates of Dawn, Disraeli Gears,
Axis: Bold As Love, and The Doors are among the most celebrated
of these trippy masterworks, but as Richard Morton Jack hips us with his new
book Psychedelia: 101 Iconic Underground
Rock Albums 1966-1970, there was a lot more happening in the acid era.

Frankly, I am ashamed to admit how puny a percentage of Morton
Jack’s picks I’ve heard, but I will admit that’s a good thing. Any book of this
sort is useless without recommending unfamiliar music, and the hunt was on
after reading the write ups on obscurities such as The David’s majestic Another Day, Another Lifetime, The
Millennium’s sunny and wonderful Begin, and The Fallen Angels’ haunting
(though not exceptionally psychedelic) It’s a Long Way Down.
Yes, I missed inclusion of personal favorites such as The Monkees’ Head, The Rascals’ Once Upon a Dream, Shine on
Brightly by Procol Harum, and The Who
Sell Out (which received similar short shrift in another recent Sterling Publishing publication), but of course,
I’ve already heard those albums. Still, Morton Jack’s details are intriguing
enough that I may have learned a thing or two about these old favorites had he
decided to include them.

Each entry follows a similar format beginning with a bit of
background history, details about and critique of the given album (no, the
author does not love every album he selects), quotes from participants, and
excerpts from period reviews. I wasn’t aware that The Pretty Things’ S.F. Sorrow and Love’s Forever Changes—two widely acclaimed
classics now—were so poorly received in their days. We also get a slew of
large-scale, full-color images of the genre’s vibrant album covers, which may
explain why such pics were missing from that other recent Sterling book to
which I referred earlier. Illuminating and suitably visual, Psychedelia: 101 Iconic Underground Rock
Albums is a coffee table book that may inspire you to substitute that cup
of coffee with something “a bit more potent.”*

*I’m talking about acid. You might want to take some acid while
reading this book.